"This poem," says Leigh Hunt, "was written in a house at the foot of Highgate Hill, on the border of the fields looking towards Hampstead. The poet had then his mortal illness upon him, and knew it; never was the voice of death sweeter." 1. =Lethe-wards.= That is, towards Lethe. Lethe was one of the rivers of Hell. Its name means "forgetfulness." Milton describes it thus: "A slow and silent stream, Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls Her watery labyrinth, whereof who drinks Forthwith his former state and being forgets-- Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain." --_Paradise Lost_, ii, 583. 2. =Dryad.= A wood-nymph. From Gr. _drus_, an oak tree. The life of the Dryad was supposed to be bound up with that of her tree. "The quickening power of the soul, like Martha, is 'busy about many things,' or, like a Dryad, living in a tree."--_Sir John Davis._ 3. =Provençal song.= Song of the troubadours, a school of lyric poets that flourished in Provence, in the south of France, from the eleventh to the thirteenth century. A love song. 4. =Hippocrene.= The "Fountain of the Horse" (_Fons Caballinus_). A fountain on Mount Helicon, Boeotia, sacred to the Muses. It was said to have been produced by the horse Pegasus striking the ground with his feet. Its waters were supposed to be a source of poetical inspiration. Longfellow, in "The Goblet of Life," says: "No purple flowers--no garlands green, Conceal the goblet's shade or sheen, Nor maddening draughts of Hippocrene, Like gleams of sunshine, flash between Thick leaves of mistletoe." 5. =Bacchus and his pards.= Bacchus was frequently represented as riding on the back of a leopard, a tiger, or a lion, or in a chariot drawn by panthers. =pards.= Spotted beasts. See Dryden's "Alexander's Feast," third stanza, page 160. 6. Compare with Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Act ii, sc. i: "I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine." 7. =darkling.= In the dark. The word is very rarely used. 8. =requiem.= A dirge, or funeral song. "So called from the first word in the Catholic mass for the dead, _Requiem æternum dona iis Domine_ (Give eternal rest to them, O Lord)."--_Brand._ =become a sod.= Compare with Ecclesiastes, xii, 7: "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was." 9. =alien corn.= See Ruth, ii. Why _alien_ corn? Longfellow, in his poem on "Flowers," says: "Everywhere about us they are glowing-- Some like stars, to tell us Spring is born; Others, their blue eyes with tears o'erflowing, Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn." FROM "THE EVE OF ST. AGNES."